


Gentling

by canis_m



Series: Close Enough for Government Work [1]
Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe, Beta/Omega, Consent, Courtship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Mating Cycles/In Heat, canon-typical mentions of rape, canon-typical mentions of violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-08
Updated: 2018-06-22
Packaged: 2019-05-19 18:29:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14878985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canis_m/pseuds/canis_m
Summary: Olivia's a beta.  Rafael's an omega.  She thinks he's not her type.She's about to think otherwise.





	1. Chapter 1

Squad car lights strobed through the piecemeal darkness. Olivia pelted between parked vehicles, flashing her badge like bared teeth. Her pulse banged in time with her boots on the pavement. Uniformed officers and CSU swarmed around and into the nearest house—an ordinary house, two stories, no more or less shabby than its neighbors on the Woodside residential street. Olivia searched among the officers, heart still in her throat: she'd seen an ambulance pull away from the scene. But Eames would've told her—if he were hurt, Eames would've said—

Then she saw him, propped upright against the hood of an unmarked car under the streetlight, swaddled in a woolen blanket. No coat, no jacket, no gloves. The lines around his mouth had deepened, grizzled with three days' worth of stubble. Exhaustion hollowed his eyes. One of Eames's senior detectives, Serena Stevens, stood by him, notepad in hand.

When Rafael sighted Olivia his chin lifted, and his expression changed. The easing of tautness only threw its tired shadows into starker relief. 

Olivia slowed to a jog. Detective Stevens was still interviewing. "And the alpha, Daniel Cantor, he made some...ideological statements?"

Rafael spoke in clipped tones. "He told me repeatedly that God has a plan for omegas, that I had deviated from it, and he was going to 'lead me back to the path.'"

Stevens made a note. Glancing up at Olivia, she murmured "Lieutenant." Then, to Rafael: "Mr. Barba, let me just check in with my captain before we let you go." 

As Stevens retreated, Rafael turned to Olivia. Harrowed as he was, the corners of his eyes crinkled faintly.

"So many cops and so few of my favorites." 

He was trying for levity; there was no sharpness in it. Olivia felt pierced through the chest. Without a word she stepped forward and folded him into her arms. Rafael stilled, as if surprised to be embraced, then sagged a little. When she drew back, his eyes searched her face. 

"Dodds took you off the case?" 

She nodded tightly. 

"When you weren't first to kick through the door, that was my clue."

"We were all too close, he said. Major Case Squad was on it." In her ugliest moments Olivia had been sure that was pure pretext. That whatever lip service he paid to protocols, Dodds had wanted her to know the impotence he'd felt in that hospital room when his son lay on the bed. "And you weren't a 'special victim'—"

"Excuse me? I'm the specialest."

She couldn't laugh. "He said he'd take our shields if we didn't stand down. Not just mine. The squad's." Excuses. They caught like claws in her throat. "I should've thrown mine in his fucking—"

"No, no, no. Liv. If you'd lost your job, that would've been the worst of this. I'm still in one piece."

And now he was comforting her, after being snatched off the street and enduring days of uncertain terror in the clutches of alpha supremacists. Maybe Dodds had been right to force her off the case. She was a swiveling cannon, looking for something to blast. She couldn't vouch for what she would've done if she'd been first to get her hands on Rafael's abductors. Beating with an iron bar might've been the least of it.

She put her hands on his shoulders, trying to convince herself of his wholeness. "You're okay?"

"My worst injury is slight chafing." He extended his arms, exposing his wrists and their faint ligature marks, almost undetectable in the dark. Olivia gave a silent hiss.

A uniformed officer approached them, clearing his throat. To Olivia's eye he looked too green to be out of high school, let alone the academy. A paper to-go cup wavered in his hand.

"Mr. Barba? That coffee you wanted."

"You're very kind," said Rafael.

Officer Jailbait's chest puffed. He hovered for a minute, then reluctantly dragged himself away. Olivia cocked an eyebrow.

"You're making friends."

Rafael sipped the coffee without relish. "At the moment I have an unfair advantage." He sounded less acerbic than resigned. Before Olivia could speak again, Captain Eames appeared with Detective Stevens in tow.

"Mr. Barba, we can fill in the details of your statement tomorrow. I'm sure you're ready to be home. I can have an officer drive you, or—" Eames glanced at Olivia. 

"I've got it," Olivia said.

"Thanks, Lieutenant."

"Thank you, Captain." She tried to say the rest with her eyes: thank you for finding him, for getting him out not just alive, but unscathed. As unscathed as anyone could be under the circumstances. Eames nodded, pressed a hand to Olivia's shoulder, and stepped away. 

Olivia shepherded Rafael with a hand at his back. In her car he sank into the passenger seat, seeming to collapse inwardly, as if only the need to preserve some shred of public dignity had kept him animated. Once he was settled, cradling his coffee like a talisman of warmth, Olivia climbed into the driver's side. She dialed Rollins and put the phone on speaker. 

It was Carisi who answered. "Hey, Lieutenant. Rollins is driving."

With good news on the tip of her tongue, Olivia mustered a smile for what felt like the first time in days. "I am sitting here with one Rafael Barba, alive and well—" She had to pause for tandem whooping.

"He's okay?" That was Carisi, still anxious. "He's there with you?"

Olivia nodded to Rafael, who cleared his throat. "'Well' would be an overstatement," he said.

_"Counselah!"_

"Oh, thank God," said Rollins. "Barba, you gave us a hell of a scare. They got the perps?"

"All in custody," Olivia said. "Listen, guys, you'll get the 411 later. He's not hurt but he's been through the wringer, so I'm gonna get him home. Pass the good word on to Fin?"

"Copy that. Take it easy, Counselor."

"Get some rest!"

Rafael leaned back again and closed his eyes, wearing the look of a weary man who'd just been mobbed by eight-week-old golden retrievers. Olivia started the car. Reluctant as she was to tax him further, she had to ask.

"Has anyone called your mom?"

His eyes flew open. He dragged a hand over his face, then shook his head. "My phone's gone."

"The perps tossed it. Eames's squad recovered it on day one." She unlocked hers and offered it to him, then pulled the car into the street. He dialed. It rang only once. In the closeness of the car's interior Olivia heard Lucía Barba's hoarse, frightened _hello?_

"Mami," murmured Rafael, "it's me." Cries on the other end of the line. "It's okay, I'm okay, I'm safe. The police found me. They caught the—yes, I'm fine, I'm not hurt. They caught the men who did it." A pause. "In Queens. Lieutenant Benson's driving me home. I don't know, thirty minutes? Forty? Mami, you don't have to...okay, okay. I'll see you there. I love you. See you soon." He lowered the phone. 

"If you need to make any other calls..." Olivia said.

He shook his head.

"You didn't seriously expect her not to show."

"Expect? No." He heaved a sigh that seemed to drain any remaining stamina from his body. Olivia laid her hand on his arm, over the gray shock blanket he was still wearing like a miserable poncho. He turned a little toward the touch and closed his eyes again.

She needed both hands on the wheel when they merged onto the Long Island Expressway. Rafael was quiet for so long she thought he'd fallen asleep. Then he said, in a muted voice, "I may not be able to finish my statement tomorrow."

"Why? What's wrong?"

"I missed three days of pills, Liv. Even if I take one tonight..." 

His hand twitched open on his thigh: a futile, abortive motion. Olivia's gut tumbled into free fall. The tail-wagging and coffee-fetching by Officer Friendly made new radical sense. 

So did other aspects of the case, as far as she knew them. "That wasn't...incidental."

"Not even close. My captors belong to a quasi-religious group called the Church of Aleph. When I was in Brooklyn I prosecuted one of its former leaders for false imprisonment." His eyes burned in the dark of the car. "You remember Gary Langham? Reverend 'curative intercourse'?"

Mouth gone leaden, Olivia said, "I remember."

"Members of the Church of Aleph believe in curative heat. To bring wayward omegas who've suppressed their natural instincts back to a healthy relationship with God and alpha." A muscle in his jaw twitched as it tightened. "So you can tell Dodds it would've been an SVU case. In another day. Give or take."

She kept her grip on the wheel. The lights of oncoming traffic blurred, then sharpened to a glitter. She tightened her hands to stop their shaking. 

"What do you need?" she asked. "What can I do?"

"You're doing it," Rafael said.

*

It was close to ten o'clock by the time she delivered him into his mother's arms, in the polished lobby of his apartment building. Lucía Barba's impression that Olivia had singlehandedly rescued her son twisted the knives that much deeper—but Rafael was home, he was safe, with a security detail still in place outside the building, just in case any co-conspirators remained at large. Olivia wished the reunited Barba clan goodnight, and drove home to try to sleep, with mixed success.

The next morning she called Rafael's landline. "Hey. How goes it?"

At first he sounded detached, almost distant. "I shouldn't go out, but if Eames can send someone here, I can talk."

"I'll call her ASAP. Your mom still there?"

"I sent her to work. Said I just wanted to sleep for a few days. She didn't buy it, but she left." There was a pause, then: "Make sure Eames sends a beta. And tell them I want my phone."

That last was spoken peevishly enough to reassure her. "I'll make it happen," Olivia said. "Check in with you later."

Between meetings with Eames's squad and her own, a press conference, and the kidnappers' arraignment, later turned out to be past five. Olivia packed up hastily, left Fin in charge, and texted Rafael. There was no instant response, despite assurances from Detective Stevens about the phone, but Rafael was probably in the thick of it. However inflicted and unwanted, if nothing else the timing of his heat might spare him from reliving the past few days. For most omegas, it was a period of sheer immediacy.

Olivia stopped en route for takeout and supplies: a six-pack of bottled water, a couple of juice smoothies, ibuprofen in case he was prone to heat hangover—though he probably had stronger stuff on hand for migraines, and would only scoff. She bypassed the coffee shops, despite vocal complaints from him in her head; current medical advice claimed heat and caffeine didn't mix.

When she knocked at the door to his apartment, he was slow to answer. She checked her phone again. He'd responded to her last text with something noncommittal: doing okay, no need to put herself out. _Too late, pal. Your doorman let me up,_ she texted back. 

At last the deadbolt clicked, and the door opened. She nearly dropped the sack of takeout Thai.

His bedhead was spectacular. He'd shaved off his abduction stubble, but his eyes were red-rimmed and woeful, his face and neck blotchily flushed. Sweat stains bloomed hugely in the armpits of his t-shirt (loud orange, with bold block lettering: SPEAK OUT STAND UP STOP DV). Below the gray sweatpants his feet looked small and bare on the hardwood floor.

His nostrils flared. He cleared his throat. 

"Liv," he rasped—and that was as far as he got.

So much for thinking he'd been bedraggled last night. "Wow," said Olivia, not ungently. He grimaced, but stepped aside and let her in. Once the initial shock lessened, his dishabille was both pathetic and somehow charming. Since Olivia preferred not to be murdered, she declined to mention that. "Rough ride, huh?"

He scraped a hand through his disheveled hair. "I forgot what it's like."

"Been a while?"

"More than two decades."

"Jesus, Rafael." She hauled her burdens to the kitchen island and took off her coat, draping it over a bar stool. "Have you eaten? Anything?"

He trailed after her, eyeing the bag of takeout with ill-concealed distaste. "Mami made _arroz con pollo._ I wasn't hungry."

"Okay. How about we see if you can eat a little, and then I promise I'll leave you alone."

He looked unenthusiastic, but didn't protest, pausing to take stock of himself. He gestured at the state of his person, then waved down the hall. "Let me just—"

"Sure."

She busied herself finding plates and dishing up a little bit of everything, Lucía Barba's chicken rice included. When Rafael reemerged, it was in a clean t-shirt—Harvard Law in maroon and grey—and his hair was in better order, though the bleary expression remained. 

He sat down at the kitchen island next to her, squinting at the food. "You went to the arraignment?"

"All three pled guilty. First-degree kidnapping. I understand they were persuaded to take a plea to avoid federal charges." And the charge of attempted rape.

She'd worried he might quibble about the deal--any deal--being given to his abductors, but he only nodded. The maximum sentence would be life. "Judge Taten'll throw the book at them." 

"She'd better. Rollins and Carisi are working with Eames's squad to follow up on the church connections, find out if there were other accessories. Now that we've been given the go-ahead to help."

He grunted. In the end he ate a few bites of pad thai and his mother's chicken, then chugged a Mighty Mango smoothie before calling it quits. He spun the empty bottle at her accusingly.

"Naked Juice. Really?"

Still making inroads on the curry, Olivia blinked. She covered her mouth. "I didn't think."

"Sure you didn't."

"I wouldn't tease you in your condition. I'm not that cruel."

"No," he sighed. "You wouldn't." He quieted, then eyed her sidelong, gaze gliding down and up with such unsubtlety that she grew conscious of herself, of her body, in a way she rarely felt in his presence. She was still in her work clothes: black pants, black v-neck, grey blazer. Nothing he hadn't seen before. She raised her eyebrows.

Rafael seemed to jolt back to himself, and jerked his gaze away. His flush redoubled. Olivia tactfully didn't look at him below the waist. But maybe she was cruel, after all, because she set down her fork, dabbed her mouth with a napkin, and said, "Getting your second wind?"

He scrambled off the bar stool as if stung by the seat. "Um, excuse me. For a minute," he managed, and staggered down the hall.

Chagrined, Olivia set about cleaning up. Omegas not on suppressants tended to have a good sense of their own heats—duration, severity, how others' scent or presence would affect them—but after twenty years on the pill, he must be totally at sea. He'd practically confessed as much. This from a man who hated being blindsided at the best of times. Who'd spent the past few days in the custody of a would-be rapist alpha, bereft of all control. 

When her scullery penance was done, she left the water bottles on the counter, in plain sight, and wandered to the living room. She considered a quiet exit, but it seemed like insult on top of injury to abandon him without another word. Imposing on the closed door to his bedroom seemed impossible. After a time she heard the dim hush of a running shower, so she settled on the couch with her phone to wait.

She checked her texts and email, scrolled through the _Ledger_ online. She didn't mean to nod off, but days of compiled exhaustion overcame her. Her chin jerked as she startled awake. 

He was there, curled on the floor, in the narrow space between couch and coffee table. His head leaned against the cushion, damp from the shower, just touching her knee. His face was turned away from her. 

"Sorry, Liv," he said, muffled, in a very small voice.

Her heart went out to him. She reached blindly, grasping his shoulders and drawing him up. "Hey, it's okay. Come up here, now. You're okay."

"I'm not," he mumbled. He let himself be coaxed to hunch beside her on the couch. He'd put on fresh clothes again, sweats and t-shirt, grey and plain white. At this rate she ought to volunteer for laundry duty.

"I know, but you will be. I know it's tough right now." She rubbed soothing circles on his upper back. "Would it help, would it make you feel better if I did some gentling? I won't if you don't want me to." She saw his brow crease. "If you'd rather I just leave you in peace—"

"What peace?" he huffed, with more resignation than ire, but he sounded a little more like himself. For the first time since he'd fled the kitchen, he turned to look at her properly. Not quite piteously. "It might help. If you really don't mind."

"Course I don't." Every SVU detective knew the technique. She'd used it on dozens of distraught omegas: to soothe panic, to calm them enough to give a statement, to lend the courage to blurt _that's him_ when they recoiled from a lineup behind the glass. She'd never thought to use it on Rafael. Until the past few days, if she were honest, he'd barely registered as his type. Dramatic flair aside, he hardly fit the profile, and between professionals, what did it matter? 

It mattered now. Olivia put her right hand on his nearer shoulder, then smoothed it up to the back of his neck. He twitched once, flinching upright, as her palm first slid from the cover of his t-shirt onto skin. Even with his visible flush, the heat of him startled her. She paused, waiting, until he exhaled, letting tension out and arching back.

"Shh, there you go." 

She massaged his nape in steady rhythm, keeping close watch on his face. His eyelids fluttered. His shoulders continued to sink. She moved her other hand to brace them, and felt minute, startling shivers chase down his back. He wasn't a large man—omegas never were—but he was compact, dense with muscle. She'd known that from the way he filled out dress shirts and suit jackets, the way his suspenders pulled as he leaned intently over podium or desk. To feel it under her hands was another thing. The scent of his damp hair reached her, laced with shampoo or shower gel, herbaceous and masculine and clean. 

Olivia bit her lip. Disquieted, she drew back. "Better?"

His eyes had drooped shut. He made a low noise of assent.

"Okay. Let's get you some water and get you back to bed." 

She stood him up and steered him past the kitchen, snagging a bottle of Ice Mountain on the way. Rafael moved languidly, suggestibly, without resistance. In the hall outside the bedroom he peeked over his shoulder. His pupils were blown wide.

"Are you coming with?"

He sounded breathless, if more like a lost little boy than a man attempting seduction. In her case, the former was more likely to do the job. Faced with an omega in this state, plenty of people in the world—not only alphas—would find it the easiest thing, the most natural, to draw him close and console him. Whatever form the consolation took. Whatever the consequences later.

Together the two of them had sent some of those people to Rikers. Olivia squeezed his arm. "We both know that's not a good idea, even if it seems like one right now."

"Of course you'd say that. But have you considered? The blanket assumption that all omegas are incapable of giving meaningful consent under the influence of heat is unduly indiscriminate. We're not a monolith. Individuals are affected to differing degrees. There are studies—"

"I've heard the arguments," she said, amused. You could take the heat out of the lawyer, it seemed, but not the reverse.

"Most partnered omegas refuse suitors other than their partners, even _in extremis."_

"It's different for everyone, I get that. The law still has to protect everyone equally."

"And so do you." He didn't bat an eyelash, but the sad puppy eyes were back. Not for the first time, Olivia thanked her stars that she had a beta's nose. Whatever take-me-now pheromones he was blaring, she was mostly immune. Mostly. Rafael swayed on his feet, as if on the verge of a swoon. "Can't blame me for trying."

"I won't." She pressed the Ice Mountain into his hands. "Text me when you feel up to it, okay? Drink water."

With a gentle pat she propelled him into the bedroom, and shut the door behind.


	2. Chapter 2

Rafael did text, though not until the following day: a terse apology for his behavior, among other things. Olivia texted back. _Nothing you said or did will be held against you in the court of my good opinion._ The weekend brought radio silence, but he'd mentioned his mother was coming over. For the most part Olivia managed not to fret.

On Monday she needed a warrant. She phoned his office, thinking to reach another ADA, and was startled when Carmen said he was in.

It made a good excuse to get some air. She bought coffees from his favorite stand outside 1 Hogan Place and made her way inside. She found Rafael ensconced at his desk, every inch his usual self, sleek and buttoned in a grey three-piece so dark it bordered on black. He'd taken the jacket off, but left on the vest. An extra layer of armor. His necktie blazed with blue and bright gold stripes. 

He glanced up as she entered. A strange rawness flashed over his face, and for a confusing instant it seemed he might jump to his feet, as he would for a judge in the courtroom. Then the strangeness passed, and his expression eased to a more usual mix: warmth at the sight of her, expectant rue over whatever fresh slab of human depravity she had in store.

"Hey," he said.

Olivia set one coffee on the edge of the desk. "So much for time off." 

"Don't you start."

Because she, of all people, ought to understand about getting back to work. Olivia raised her hands in surrender. "I just figured the DA would make you take a few more days." She softened her voice. "You've been through a lot."

"I wasn't tortured. Other than nabbing me at gunpoint and locking me in a room, they were very polite." All the while intending rape, Olivia thought grimly, but didn't say. What hadn't happened was as important as what had. "Now that I'm no longer...indisposed...there's no medical reason to continue sitting on my ass at home. I can only handle so much Turner Classic Movies time with Mami."

"I'm glad your mom's been there for you." Olivia slipped off her trench and draped it over a chair. "You know, just because it could've been worse doesn't mean it wasn't--" she stopped herself on _traumatic._ His experience wasn't hers to define. "Difficult to go through." 

"And I'm compartmentalizing like it's going out of style. Anyway, I'm here, you're here. Thank you for the elixir of life." He took a long drink. "What did you need?"

"Rollins and Carisi uncovered evidence that other members of the Church of Aleph have engaged in omega trafficking and forced bonding."

He was already shaking his head. "You know as well as I do how hard forced bonding is to prove. The defense can call a slew of expert witnesses who'll testify it's not even possible. That in cases of imprisonment or long-term abuse, the happy puppy hormones just aren't there."

"Then pray we can get them on the trafficking."

"Good luck and godspeed. If you're investigating Cantor's associates, I can't be involved."

"Even for a warrant?"

"Better I recuse myself now than have its validity questioned later." His thumb tapped the edge of the desk. "You've met the new kid? ADA Ferrera?"

"Briefly. While you were out."

"We'll see if she's around. I'll walk you over." Grabbing his coffee, he led the way, then fell into step beside her in the hall.

Sofia Ferrera was thirty-something, lanky and indomitable in steely suit and red heels. Olivia wondered what was in the water at the DA's office that made pop-of-color footwear de rigueur to its denizens, or whether that was just the senior ADA's trendsetting at work. Like most alpha attorneys—and alpha cops—Ferrera didn't bother with pheromone masking outside of court, letting natural scent bolster natural authority. She beamed as if the opportunity to do Mr. Barba a favor had made her day. 

Without deliberation Olivia stepped closer to him, standing in his space like she had every right to be there.

*

The trafficking investigation hit a dead end: none of the vics would testify, or even acknowledge criminal wrongdoing by the alphas who were now their partners, their partners' family and friends. Omega devotion in action. Olivia set her teeth, turned the evidence over to the feds in case they wanted to pursue, and resigned herself to letting it go. 

On the heels of that came a grisly rape-murder that left the entire squad queasy for days. It resurrected nightmares that hounded Olivia from sleep, only now sometimes it wasn't herself bound and gagged in the back of a car, it was Rafael, and she was the one racing to the scene too late. 

Days passed, and still they had no real suspect. It was almost a relief when a live and unharmed high school girl trailed into the precinct, whimpering that her boyfriend had forced her to bond.

Rollins was with her in the interview room, talking her down. "So you weren't in heat. The two of you had sex. And you were okay with that? The sex was consensual?"

"Yeah, I mean, that part. I wanted to."

"Okay. What happened then?"

"After he f-finished he, um, he bit my neck. Kind of hard. I mean it didn't break the skin or anything, but...then he said we were bonded, and I could never break up with him again."

Standing behind the one-way window, Olivia winced. But it wasn't her first time beholding an epic failure of sex ed. Rollins schooled her face to patient sympathy. 

"Honey, that's not how it works. That's not how bonds happen. It takes time, shared pheromones. In most cases you'd need to spend multiple heats with the person, along with engaging in pair-bonding behavior." The omega girl looked confused. "Doing couple stuff," explained Rollins. "Sharing food, spending time together. It doesn't happen just from having sex, and it sure as heck doesn't happen because he bit you."

Olivia flipped off the speaker. She went to her desk and opened her laptop. Another email from the crime lab: fingerprint reports, all inconclusive. She rubbed her temples, trying to stave off a burgeoning headache. Soon Rollins knocked at the door.

"The boyfriend's either dumb as rocks or a manipulative jerk, or both," she said, "but nothing criminal happened. They're both underage, so no statutory."

"You called the parents?"

"Not yet. I'm on it."

"Thanks." Olivia glanced at the time display on her screen. "I'm gonna step out, grab some dinner. You should clock out after this. I mean it."

"I'll take you up on that," Rollins said.

Olivia collected her things. On the way out of the precinct she texted Rafael: _Forlini's?_

The reply came inside of a minute. _Way ahead of you._

By the time she arrived he was well into his first drink. The bar side of the restaurant was largely empty, quiet enough to hear Sinatra crooning overhead: _but you ain't seen it shine._ Rafael sat in his usual spot, in shirtsleeves, coat and jacket folded on the bar stool to his left. His suspenders—solid navy—drew dark bands across the windowpane print of his shirt. He closed the file he'd been reading as Olivia took her place on his other side. 

"Still no suspect?"

"This guy's a ghost." She nicked an olive from the plate of antipasto at his elbow. Salt and brine on her tongue roused her torpid stomach to a roil. "And every time I look at the crime scene photos, I feel like I need a shower." The bartender brought her a glass of Cab without being told. She ordered the chicken piacentina and stole another olive.

He studied her more keenly. Whatever he read in her face, it evidently didn't reassure. "When's the last time you saw Lindstrom?"

"Ouch." She'd thought she was keeping it together better than that, on the outside at least. "I haven't in a while. I should make an appointment." He opened his mouth again, probably to ask something else she didn't feel like answering. She beat him to the punch. "Did you ever find time to meet with him?"

Rafael went poker-faced. "I did," he said, to her surprise, and no small gratification. "We talked."

"And?"

"I said I'd prefer to talk to someone else, and he gave me a referral."

It sounded final, as if he'd shut that storybook and declared The End. "And you haven't followed up."

He reached for his glass of Glenlivet, not to drink it but to occupy his hands. "I know you and a lot of other people find it helpful, Liv, but talking to a stranger—"

"Talking to strangers is your bread and butter," she pointed out. "The only way they stop being strangers is if you go more than once." She heard the way she sounded, and repented, if only in part. The choice was his; she had no right to harangue him into therapy to assuage her own guilt. "Sorry. End of spiel."

"Really? That was quick."

Olivia flattened her lips, but let it slide. She took a swig of wine, then reached for the paper bag she'd brought with her from the precinct. "Here. Before I forget."

Rafael peered into the bag. "Cannoli?" He gave her a speculative look she couldn't quite parse. 

"Carisi brought them," she said. "Trying to boost morale via sugar high."

"Regifted cannoli. Even yummier."

"They don't have cooties. I'm not regifting, I'm sharing. Like we learned about in kindergarten?"

There were only two to pick from, but his fingers hovered choosily between. Selection made, he inspected his choice, determining his angle of approach. Olivia watched his tongue flick out to taste the cream filling. She looked away abruptly, groping for her glass.

*

They caught the ghost when an unexpected nosewitness came forward: an omega man who was able to ID the perp by scent. After the trial and its guilty verdict, Rafael appeared at the precinct with no discernible purpose other than to receive his laurels. The things we celebrate, Olivia thought. She nodded at the bag from Don Paco's on the table in her office. Rafael turned on his heels with a pleased little pivot. There'd be no accusations of regifting today.

"For me?"

"How about we split it?" She took off her glasses and shut her laptop. "Nick swore to me this bakery was good."

Rafael removed his jacket, unveiling the suspenders du jour. She'd always been fond of the gold paisley. He sat on the couch and pulled the bag toward him to dig in. 

"How's L.A. treating him? Amaro."

"Good, as far as I know. I don't hear from him that often." She stood up and stretched the kinks out, intending to fetch coffee for them both, but the peculiar expression on Rafael's face gave her pause. 

He was staring, very strangely, at the unassuming take-out container that held a square of cake.

"What," she said. "You don't like _tres leches_?"

"Is there a particular reason you chose this particular cake?"

No one expects the Spanish inquisition, thought Olivia. Aside from his preference for the gourmet and overpriced, she'd never known him to be picky about sweets. "It looked delicious?" 

His eyes closed briefly. When they reopened, he looked almost pained. "This conversation is hypothetical as of now, okay?"

Bewildered, she agreed. Rafael sucked in a breath and straightened his posture, as if he sat before the court. 

"By far the greater likelihood is that you purchased this cake without ulterior knowledge or motive, but in the event that there was a question here, hypothetically, the answer would be yes."

Ulterior _what?_ She shook her head. "You've lost me."

"Ah...right." He skittered a glance toward the open door, as if flight were an increasingly attractive option. Failing that, he rubbed his face in his hands, then looked up at Olivia with something akin to despair. "Move to strike?"

"Wait, hold on." She sat down on the arm of the couch. "If the answer's yes, what's the question?"

He seemed to shrink into the grey upholstery. "You don't want to just Google it? Preferably after I exit the building?"

"Rafa, what the hell?"

His gaze fixed resolutely on the far windows, the ones that faced the street. He lifted his chin. " _Pastel de tres leches_ is a traditional courting gift. From alpha to omega."

She stared at him. He looked down at the cake in its container. His hands lay on the sofa cushions, frozen in place. He seemed to be trying to swallow a lump in his throat, without success.

Olivia stood. Action, she thought, action was best. "Hold that thought. I'm going to get us coffee. You—stay. Don't try to flee."

She navigated to the coffee station on autopilot. The bullpen hubbub reached her ears dimly, remote and surreal. Carisi gave her a quizzical glance as she passed, but said nothing. 

The coffee pot held only dregs, so she started a fresh one, grateful for the reprieve. There were facts of the case to consider. That she was playing for time, for one thing. That it was possible she'd known about _tres leches_ cake, had been told and since forgotten, leaving the data crammed away in some corrupted file in her brain. That she wasn't surprised, not really, to learn his answer to the question she questionably hadn't meant to ask was yes.

And what to do with that, now that she had it? It wasn't as if they'd never flirted, or even that she'd understood the flirting to be strictly play. But he was omega, she was beta. Over time the path of least resistance had settled them into a friendship so secure that it felt steady as a planet in its orbit. As steady, and as unlikely to veer from course. Even if other courses were possible. She relied on that steadiness—had been scared to trade it, maybe, for something less sure to last.

For a long, unmoored minute she let herself think in earnest, as she never had before, about another course.

The coffee finished brewing. She poured two mugs and dumped creamer into one, feeling equally muddied. She carried the mugs to her office and bumped the door shut behind her with her heel.

Rafael hadn't moved from his position: head bowed, hands curled, eyes on the catastrophic hunk of cake. Awaiting her verdict. She handed him the coffee without creamer and sat.

"Hypothetically," she said slowly, "how long has the answer been yes?"

"Since...before my incident last month. If that's what you're wondering."

"Not just since you were in heat."

"No, no, that only made the awareness more acute." He clung to the mug in his hands. His eyes as he turned to face her were full and bright. "You were so good to me, Liv, you always are, and I know, I _know_ that's your kindness, that you'd do as much for anyone with the smallest claim on your goodwill, and I understand you didn't mean anything by the godforsaken cake, so if we could just—strike this from the record and go on as we have—"

"Rafa, hold on." She touched his knee. His mouth clapped shut. "You've felt this way for a while."

"Yes."

"And you said nothing because...you thought I didn't."

His lips moved in a wan allusion to a smile. "I did my due diligence. If you've ever looked twice at an omega, no one saw you do it."

She could've protested— _I look twice at you all the time. Hell, I do double takes_ —but on the whole he wasn't wrong. She tipped her head sideways in acknowledgment. "It's true I've pretty much stuck to alphas. If there was intention behind that—" she nodded at the cake, "—it wasn't conscious." She stopped for a breath. "Maybe my subconscious has the right idea."

He was watching her with something like terror, or terrible hope. "Liv."

"I don't see why my dating history has to be an obstacle." That sounded deliberately obtuse, she knew. At the moment being obtuse seemed easier than revising lifelong self-perception, but Rafael was having none of it.

"It's not about history. It's inclination. Either it's there or it's not."

"You make it sound so...cut and dried. Black and white."

"Isn't it?"

She set down her coffee mug. The cloudy swirls of creamer had dissipated. She took Rafael's hand, bringing it to rest on her thigh. 

"I think sometimes there are doors we don't open," she said. "Doesn't mean the door's not there."

He had beautiful hands. Mobile, expressive. She'd always noticed them, even early on—maybe more so then, before she'd perfected tuning out the awareness. Noticed his eyes, his mouth, the quick incisive mind that moved them, the poorly-battened feeling heart. His solid presence so often at her side. Somehow it hadn't sunk in that all these were truly on offer, that they'd been put in service to her and were now hers, if she wanted, to hold dear. To protect better than she had been. She slid her thumb over his knuckles. He clung to the tips of her fingers as if hanging from a cliff for dear life. 

"You're my best friend," she said, "and I love you. And I think I could be in love with you, if you give me a chance. If you're willing to let me play catch-up."

His eyes were getting shiny at the corners. Olivia hoped no one was lurking at the window, or she'd be forever known as the lieutenant who'd made ADA Barba cry. What kind of hell bitch, honestly? Instead of going for tissues, she reached for a napkin from the bakery bag and folded it between his fingers. It seemed less brazen than handing him his own pocket square.

He accepted the offering, blinking hard. "Don't take too long?" 

It was a tiny plea, in the tiny voice reserved for use between them, and she knew by the stumble of her heart that she was already halfway gone. Maybe more than half. It struck her as a serious injustice that she couldn't press her lips to his hand.

"You picked a hell of a time and place to have this conversation," she observed. "Even if I wanted to kiss you, I can't."

For a second he looked thunderstruck. Then he screwed up his face and sniffed. "You're the one throwing down betrothal cake at 10 a.m. on a Tuesday."

"Betrothal? You said courting."

"Depends which _abuelita_ you ask. Either way, this cake is not messing around."

"Neither am I," Olivia said.

Carisi chose that moment to knock, open the door, and stick his head in, without so much as a by-your-leave. Rafael looked outraged at the nerve, but at least they weren't still holding hands. Olivia turned coolly to Carisi.

"Hey Lieu. Sorry to interrupt. We might've caught a break in the Koval case. Security footage caught the plate number on the van. Rollins is running it now." His eyes lit on the cake with interest. "Any left for me?"

"Not this time, Carisi."

Rafael swept the cake box onto his lap, resource guarding like his life depended on it. He unwrapped two plastic forks. He handed one to Olivia and kept the other, glowering in Carisi's general direction.

"Get your own," he said, and stuffed a forkful of _pastel de tres leches_ into his mouth.


	3. Chapter 3

The invitation was a test, if not much of one. Rafael went to the theater, read books that weren't crime potboilers for pleasure, had more color sense in his little finger than all of Olivia's exes combined. Somehow she'd felt she was rolling the dice nonetheless when she sent the text.

_You free Sunday? There's an exhibit at the botanical garden. Something about Hawai'i and Georgia O'Keeffe._

He texted back promptly. _O'Keeffe? You don't beat around the bush, do you._

_The bush?_

_No need to be coy. All those calyxes and corollas._

She stifled a snort. _Someone's been working sex crimes too long._

_You realize flowers are, in fact, the sex organs of plants. It's not prurience, it's botany._

_Uh-huh. I'm sorry I asked._

He backpedaled immediately at that. _Olivia Benson, I'd be delighted to ogle yonic hibiscus with you. Brunch after, or before?_

_Before? I'd hate to ogle on an empty stomach._

She'd had to look up the meaning of _yonic,_ and after rolling her eyes had wondered if she was biting off more than she could chew. He'd probably taken art appreciation at Harvard. She'd once taken a paint-and-sip class and gotten soused on shitty Merlot.

Still, it didn't seem to matter. Now they stood in the Haupt Conservatory, surrounded by flowers, breathing fragrant tropical air. Paned glass walls rose past palm fronds to the domed ceiling, keeping the autumn outside at bay. Lush rows of vegetation stretched down the wings between pavilions: bougainvillea, bird-of-paradise, plants with spade-shaped leaves as broad as dinner plates that Olivia couldn't name. She consulted her program. The champagne from their brunch bubbled agreeably under her mood. 

They strolled past ginger and frangipani, arm in arm. Rafael eyed the thatched-roof structure at the conservatory's heart.

"Surprised they're not serving umbrella drinks," he said.

"I think you have to come after hours for that. Ditto for the salsa classes."

"Salsa? That's not Hawai'ian."

"No, but it sounds like fun." Who was she kidding—he'd probably taken ballroom dance at Harvard. He could probably teach her to rumba if she asked. "C'mon, let's go see the paintings." 

They made their way to the exhibition hall. _Hibiscus with Plumeria_ drew the most attention from visitors, but Olivia stopped to linger in front of a mountainous green landscape. The valley opened in soft verdant folds, its river and cascade a half-hidden trickle gleaming between them. Clouds and mist blurred the receding peaks above. The caption read _Waterfall, No. 1._

Rafael stood at her shoulder. "Found your favorite?" 

He was keeping a straight face, more or less, but his eyes glinted. Mind in the gutter again, no doubt. Olivia refused to dignify his amusement by asking what was so funny.

"It's soothing," she said. "Restful." He tipped his head, as if to say he couldn't disagree. "Have you ever been?"

"Hawai'i? No. The Caribbean, several times."

"On other people's yachts?"

"It wasn't on the Party Boat Cruise Line," he said. "You?"

She shook her head. "I haven't done a whole lot of traveling." Neither of them mentioned Paris, though he knew she'd gone.

Rafael looked down at the toes of his shoes. "I don't want to jump the gun here, but if you're looking for an experienced guide..."

"You and me, vacation at the same time? The criminal element would have a field day."

"Cue mass mayhem. You're right—too dangerous. And suspicious." 

The speed of his capitulation startled her. She slipped her arm through his again. "Hey," she said. "That was a joke. Even if it weren't, I'm not saying no. I'd like to go somewhere with you. Someplace warm. We'll figure it out." She felt his shoulder relax against hers. "You know I don't own a yacht, right?"

"Your one flaw." His look turned quizzical. "You're not developing some kind of complex, are you? What's this about?"

"Maybe I'm jealous of your boating buddies. Do you actually sail? Or just—"

"Drink rum and look decorative."

"Right."

"Friends from law school," he said, after a pause to build gratuitous suspense. "Happily married ones. Who went to work in the private sector and can now afford their own yacht, unlike us humble public servants."

"Humble?" she echoed. "Who's that?" 

They drifted back to the conservatory, wandering from the Hawai'ian exhibit to the rainforest pavilion. A kapok tree laden with orchids arched in an arbor over their heads. When they passed a bromeliad blooming in the exact pink of Rafael's pocket square, Olivia couldn't resist any longer. She put her hand to his breast pocket and fingered the scalloped fringe of silk.

"What is this, your camouflage?" He stopped in his tracks on the pathway, blinking rapidly at her hand. For once he had no smart retort. She quit fingering and smoothed his pocket down. "I like it," she told him. "You look good. You know that, right?"

His head tipped head back and forth, an equivocal see-saw. "Opinions vary."

Part of her stood by, incredulous—did either of them really think his ego needed tending? But it struck her that she'd never told him before, not in so many words, or any words at all. He seemed unsure of his footing now in a way that tugged her heart, and it pained her to think that for any period he'd imagined himself only indifferently seen, only tepidly loved. She slipped her hand between his jacket and the sweater beneath it, tan cashmere, soft to touch. 

"You always look good," she murmured. "You looked good that night at your apartment when I couldn't do anything about it."

His bemusement this time was short-lived. His nostrils flared, as if in returning scent-memory. A private smile pulled slowly, not quite shyly, at the side of his mouth.

"You wanna do something about it now?"

*

She took him back to her place. The thought came, on the drive back to Manhattan, that they'd never spent so much time together that had no connection to work. If she'd worried about awkwardness or oddness, she needn't have: even with the frisson between them, silences were easy. On her part, anyway. When they reached the elevator of her building, Rafael began to give the impression of barely-bottled carbonation, as if on cracking open he might burst into froth.

They were alone in the elevator. Olivia took his hand. He tightened his hold on her fingers, then turned his body toward hers, edging near enough to lower his head and inhale her scent, all without extinguishing the space between them.

In the foyer of her apartment she used her body to chivy him against the wall. She'd forgone her usual boots in favor of a lower heel; it put the two of them exactly eye to eye. She slid her hand under his sweater where it fell at his waist, and hooked her finger in one suspender, hidden between sweater and undershirt. He was breathing like they'd taken the stairs instead of the elevator, eyes swallowing her every move. 

"Liv." It was nearly a whisper. "If you need time, if you want to go slow—"

She pressed up against him with purpose, bringing her chest to his. He shut up immediately. 

"Do I look like I need time?" Her voice had gone throaty. She leaned until their noses brushed. "Do I smell like it?"

He made a frayed negating noise. She cupped his face between her palms and kissed his mouth.

For a minute it seemed she'd rendered him immobile, as if all his focus had narrowed to the feel of her mouth on his, the wet heat where their lips parted and joined again more slickly. Then his arms came up to clutch her to him, with enough force almost to lift her off her feet.

The uncurbed fervor delighted her, and the abandonment of any pretense at being suave. When the kiss broke he applied for another, and another, then bumped his forehead to hers and stood open-mouthed, eyes closed. He gulped breaths at her temple and pulse point, taking frantic drags of her scent. 

"Liv," he panted, "Liv—"

This much was familiar: omegas shared with alphas their overdeveloped olfaction, the need to scent a lover, old or new. They couldn't help it, but it never failed to flatter. Olivia returned the gesture with her ordinary nose, savoring the amber notes of his cologne, its underlying thread of honey. 

"You smell good, too," she murmured. She gave the hem of his jacket a playful tug. "You're wearing a lot. You wanna take this off?"

He hurried to wriggle out of it. She helped him peel the cashmere sweater over his head. She draped both on the coat rack, then hitched her fingers to his bared suspenders and towed him to the couch. 

She kicked off her shoes and shed her own sweater, leaving the camisole on. For the moment. Rafael watched with lips parted, like a man bludgeoned by amazement at his own luck. She'd expected him to sit down beside her, but he dropped to the carpet and knelt instead between her legs. 

The bludgeoned look receded slightly. His hand touched her knee. "Liv, if we're doing this, I need to know—if there's anything I should know not to do—"

She understood what he was asking. The memories still held more power than she cared to accept, sometimes, years after the fact. She reached to stroke his hair. Its gelled strands felt like dried straw under her fingers. 

"Three things." He was listening with almost comical intensity, but she didn't smile. "Never grab me from behind without warning. You don't get to tie me up. And never play 'Ain't We Got Fun' in my earshot."

He looked blank at the last. Maybe it had never come up, even in all the prep work they'd done for the trial. At least she could say the song's title now without her gorge rising. That was progress. 

"It was playing in the car when...." She stopped. Her mind balked. "I don't want to go there." 

"No, don't, you're here, I'm here." Remorse darkened his face. "I didn't want to bring it up—"

"It's okay. Sweet man. I know why you asked." She also knew how loudly their circle of acquaintance would guffaw at hearing Rafael Barba called sweet, but she stood by her word. Let him be caustic in a caustic world. He was sweet when and where it counted. "What about you?"

"Me?"

"Things that are off limits."

He sat back on his haunches, momentarily stumped. Then his expression turned grave.

"Anal probe electroejaculation."

She choked a laugh. "That's a hard no?"

"I draw the line."

"How...vanilla of you."

"Also, despite what past escapades in court might suggest, I have zero interest in erotic asphyxiation." He paused to side-eye the very concept. "Purportedly erotic."

"Duly noted," she said. "Come up here."

His hands eased from her knees to her thighs. He licked his lips. "You should be aware, there was a reason for getting down here in the first place. There were plans."

"Oh, were there?" She could almost see the bulletproof decision tree. He was making it hard to stop smiling, now. "You can get back to those in a minute. Come here."

She didn't have to tell him again. He shucked his shoes and clambered up as she scooted back, head propped on a throw pillow, making a place for him between her legs. Their noses collided as he dove for a kiss. She snuffled laughter, then sighed as he settled onto her. She palmed up and down his back to learn the lay of him, to luxuriate in his weight and the play of muscle as he stretched. When her fingers met the leather that fastened suspenders to trousers, she hesitated, like a teenage boy daunted by his first bout with a bra.

Rafael lurched upright to dispense with the suspenders himself. He untucked his shirt, then resettled, this time with greater deliberation. The press of him between her thighs—against her breasts and groin—made Olivia bite her lip. Cupping the back of his neck, she drew him in for more kisses.

She'd forgotten what touching his nape could do to him. He made a melting sound into her mouth and went boneless. Boneless everywhere except his middle. When she rocked her hips, more teasing than testing, he made the same sound at a higher pitch. Well, weren't omegas supposed to whimper in bed? A girl could get to like it.

She had enough presence of mind, if only just, to take herself to task for that. Notions about what omegas did, what they preferred, what they wanted out of sex, would as likely obscure the actual man in her arms as tell her anything about him. She could trust him to tell and show her himself.

He must've noticed her distraction. His whole body went carefully still. "You okay?"

He'd lifted his head so he could see her face. Taking advantage, she trailed her thumb over his slicked lower lip. "Just thinking how lucky I am."

"You?" He exhaled. "That's my line."

"Not if I got to it first. But I'll share." Stretching a little, she lifted her lips to his earlobe. She traced its curl with her smile. When she licked over its little hole, he made a wonderfully unquiet noise, and shuddered. "Oh, is that a spot?" She did it once more to verify. His shudder became a spasm about the hips. Before he could draw another ragged breath, she murmured, "So tell me. About those plans?"

He looked at her like she was everything, and slid back to his knees on the floor.

*

"Objection!" Rafael snapped to his feet. "Domineering. Your Honor, the defense's posturing is subjecting Miss Koval to type-based intimidation. Not to mention the People can smell him from here."

"Sustained," said Judge Barth from the bench. "Mr. Buchanan, you will refrain from approaching the witness. I won't have bullying in my courtroom."

Buchanan plastered on a placating smile and backed away from the stand. "Forgive me, Your Honor." The victim, Lena Koval, was fifteen, the kind of omega who could be typed on sight: small in stature, wide-eyed, delicately made. Next to Buchanan's tall bulk she looked fragile and wilted. Tears streaked her downturned face. "My instincts sometimes get the better of me."

From her seat in the gallery, Olivia couldn't see Rafael's eye-roll, but she sensed it was one for the ages. Judge Barth continued to flatten Buchanan with her stare.

"You are wearing a pheromone mask, I presume?"

"Of course, Your Honor."

"Then reapply it." With a glance at Lena, Barth raised her gavel. "Miss Koval, you may step down. This court is in recess. We'll resume after lunch."

The gavel banged. The room erupted into motion. Lena's haggard parents, both beta women, opened their arms as she rushed to them, still weeping. Rollins hovered near the family, hackles raised as she glared across the courtroom at Buchanan and the perps. 

Olivia's eye caught on Rafael's shoulders. Under the sharp fit of his suit they were tense. When he turned, his glance slid to and from her without settling. She waited for him to gather his things and followed him to the door.

In the corridor she stepped up to his side. "Hey." She nudged his elbow. "Sidebar?"

"After that? I've lost my appetite. For every juror who feels sorry for her, there's another thinking 'Hysterical omega, coming unglued because an alpha looked at her wrong.'"

"At least Judge Barth had your back. Come on, we'll order in. You'll need your strength."

When the door to his office shut behind them, he shed his jacket and sank into the nearest chair. He scrubbed his face between his palms. 

Without a thought Olivia came up behind him, laying a hand on his shoulder. That much had been second nature, even before they'd started...what they'd started. She barely noticed when her hand lingered, or its upward trajectory, but Rafael did. He craned his neck to squint.

"What are you doing?"

Confused, she pulled back. "I thought...since we're....It's a tough case."

He drew himself upright, twisting. Convention had it that omegas were often puppyish, but Rafael was catlike in dignity and affront. 

"You do realize I've been prosecuting for years without an alpha or—" the jerk of his chin encompassed her "—a very convincing beta to _pet_ me during recess."

Olivia winced. "I know that. I know." She retreated to the couch, retrenched, took a breath. If there was a juncture more fraught than the one between omegahood and masculine professional pride...and she'd put her foot in it. She groped for words that might unruffle him. 

"I'm good to do my job on five hours of sleep. That doesn't mean my body doesn't want eight. How many of us in this world are getting every single one of our needs met? Emotional, physical—"

"So I'm deficient in, what. Vitamin G?"

"I'm not trying to claim I know better than you do," she said. He'd launched from his chair and was pacing in front of the couch, keeping his distance. She opened her hands. "I'm new at this, Rafael. I just want to do what I can. If there's anything. I want to do things right."

He stopped in his tracks. She held his gaze until the coolness in it relented, and the set of his mouth eased. 

"What is it your minions say? Copy that."

"My minions?" But he was already shifting gears, diving into his briefcase, reaching to loosen his tie. He spent the time until their lunch arrived with his legal pad, frowning and punctiliously scribbling notes. 

Olivia checked her email and let him be. When Carmen knocked at the door with their order, she let him pay without a fuss, and meekly accepted her hoagie. 

As they ate in silence, side by side on the couch, she considered whether she'd stepped out of line. They were both adept at fending for themselves, offended by the idea that they might be missing something key. But she didn't think it was wrong to make the offer.

The food and coffee did their work. Halfway through his sandwich, Rafael snorted. The snort had enough good humor in it to be reassuring, but Olivia cocked her head.

"Should've seen this coming." He spoke with his mouth full. "You and your overzealous sense of responsibility."

"It's not overzealous. It's zealous an appropriate amount." 

He leveled his best wordless _oh please._ She searched past it, studying his face, and only then thought to ask what she should've asked already. 

"Do you dislike it?" Outside of heat and sex, she didn't say, because she wasn't wholly devoid of sense.

"Outside the boudoir, you mean?" He hesitated. "It's not something I've pursued."

That sounded like deflection, but she wasn't going to press, not now. She shook her head. "I shouldn't have presumed—"

"Detection isn't presumption." He crumpled his sandwich wrapper and mashed it brusquely into the bag. "If you've detected that I like having your hands on me, I'm not going to deny the evidence." He saw her blinking, and the bluster went out of him abruptly. He lowered his voice. "Liv. I'm not used to this, either. Having this on the table." He turned to face her, eyes gone plaintive. The look in them pulled the breath from her chest. "Bear with me?"

"Of course," she said faintly. She set aside her half-eaten sandwich, clasped his forearm and squeezed. He looked down at her hand before covering it with his own. When he let go, it was only to loosen his tie further, and to undo the top buttons of his shirt. Collar opened, he settled forward over his thighs, letting his head bow. 

"Well?" He eyed her sidelong. "Clock's ticking. Better make it quick."

Olivia's heart lurched. She knew better than to question his sureness. She glanced through the window to check that Carmen had left for lunch. Even if gentling was far from risque, it'd be cause for remark that Rafael would submit to it.

Releasing his arm, she scooted closer, until the edges of their thighs met. She laid her spread palm on his upper back, above the Y where his suspenders forked. 

He went still.

She slid her hand upward, over his collar. Her palm covered his neck. His stillness nearly unnerved her: the absence of familiar motion, of restless energy only half suppressed.

"Okay?" she asked.

Rafael nodded. Angling her hand, she splayed her thumb and forefinger. The tip of her thumb skimmed the hair at his nape, behind his ear. The short, greying fringe seemed unspeakably dear to her, the permission to touch it likewise. She kneaded gently, feeling the warmth of his skin, the bumps of his spine. His mouth opened and went slack.

With no other warning his upper body swung toward her, a drunken needle towards north. He didn't pitch forward, or plaster his face into the join of her shoulder and neck, but it seemed clear that if they'd been elsewhere, he might have. Olivia kept her hand on his nape, a light steady contact, ready to release at an instant's notice. She felt she should be murmuring something—if not sweet nothings, then fierce support: _you're gonna put those sons of bitches away._

She settled for "I've got you," softly murmured. He answered with a grunt. It didn't quite verge on a whimper, not until she resumed her careful kneading of his nape. "Too much?"

"No," he sighed. "It's good."

A flush suffused her. It felt heated, heady, unexpected. When gentling vics or witnesses the act had always been routine. It was procedure, no source of special pride, even if she had more of a knack than the average beta. But this—

Rafael drooped against the back of the couch. His neck arched into the curve of her hand. He looked at her with heavy-lidded eyes, face soft, tie askew.

"You're very good," he said. Goosebumps pricked Olivia's skin.

This had to be what alphas felt.

*

In the minutes before court resumed, they met Lena Koval outside the courtroom. During the recess she'd regained her self-possession, and winced as she apologized to Rafael.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Barba. I don't know what happened."

"I do," he said, "and exactly none of it was your fault. Everything the defense did was calculated. He can't pull the same trick again, but if you need another recess, tell me. The judge will grant it."

Lena managed a watery smile. "Thank you. For standing up for me. I wish I had your..."

"Bitchitude?" he offered. Olivia's jaw dropped, but the language hit its intended mark: Lena hiccuped an incredulous laugh. For an instant Olivia caught a glimpse of the blithe, bright-eyed kid she must've been before Buchanan's clients did what they'd done. 

"Um, I was gonna say 'courage,'" Lena said.

Rafael addressed her soberly. "Miss Koval, in our society, simply being omega takes more courage than an alpha like Buchanan, or those men he's defending, can begin to comprehend. Just being. Let alone getting up on the stand. You have it."

"You do," agreed Olivia, squeezing Lena's shoulder. "And we're in your corner."

Squaring herself, Lena nodded. She let the two of them lead the way through the courtroom doors. 

Before turning for her seat in the gallery, Olivia leaned to Rafael's ear. "You know who else is good?"

He smoothed his impeccable tie. He kept his eyes trained forward, game face intact. "That was a pep talk. Tell me again when the jury convicts."

When, not if. "Oh, I will," Olivia said.


	4. Chapter 4

Rafael peered though the window into the interview room. "What do we have?"

"Amena Hill, 18-year-old omega, freshman at City College," Olivia said. "Her beta boyfriend, age 19, swapped her suppressants for placebo without her knowledge."

"So she goes into heat, he takes advantage—"

"Initially she resisted. Asked him to take her to Student Health. He used gentling to distract her until her heat became overwhelming."

Rafael gave the impression of curling his lip without actually deigning to do so.

"A friend in the same dorm, alpha female, smelled what was going on and intervened. Kicked boyfriend to the curb and took Amena to the clinic. All the friends we've talked to corroborate that Amena had no intention of going off suppressants."

"Any evidence?"

"His prints on the pill case. The lab confirms they're sugar pills. We think he ordered them online."

"It's a start. I'll get you a warrant." He nodded toward Amena, who sat at the conference table, huddled into a purple bomber jacket blazoned with the Greek letter Ω. She poked mutinously at her phone. "How's she doing?"

"Enraged. Outraged. The intercourse itself wasn't physically traumatic, and she welcomed it at the time, but now—"

He spoke low. "She feels betrayed by her body along with the man who did this."

Olivia looked at him. "Yes." 

They knocked before entering the room. Amena put down her phone and frowned uncertainly between them.

"Amena, this is Assistant District Attorney Rafael Barba. He's been working with us for a long time on cases like yours. Cases of assault on omegas."

Rafael nodded. "Miss Hill."

Amena's nostrils flared. She peered up. "You O?" 

Olivia blinked in surprise. Between Rafael's cologne and whatever high-octane masking he wore, it was rare that he got typed on first whiff. His eyebrows quirked. 

"Quite the nose you have."

"Oh, thank Jesus." Amena flopped back in her chair. "I'm sorry, but on TV, lawyers are always raging A-holes, and I am in no mood for that. If you're an O-boy you'll understand."

His face was deadpan. "Thank you for your confidence. Miss Hill, your boyfriend—" 

"Ex," she spat.

He nodded again. "Given that he deprived you of the ability to give meaningful consent, I can charge rape in the second degree. If the case goes to trial, you will be asked to testify."

"Testify? I will scream from the damn rooftops what he did. I work my tail off to go to school. I choose a beta to get with because I deal with enough alpha bullshit at home. And this is what I get? What he did was fucked up. He shouldn't get away with it."

"No rooftops required," Rafael assured her. "Only the witness stand. And we'll do our best to see he doesn't."

When Rollins returned to finish the interview, Olivia decamped with Rafael to her office. He hovered, perhaps a little closer than necessary.

"Anything else you need from me?" 

"I could ask you the same thing." 

Their eyes met. His mouth moved almost imperceptibly, and his glance darted from her to the room: door that could be shut, blinds that could be drawn. The couch, temptingly unoccupied. But they really ought to be on best behavior, at least until they'd managed to disclose. And then for the duration. She sighed. Rafael consulted his phone and shook his head. 

"I have a deposition." He straightened his suit jacket, looking vaguely forlorn. "Dinner?"

"Text me," she said. Then, just as he exited the room, "Later, O-boy."

The glare he shot over his shoulder was dire.

*

As she returned to her desk in the squad room, Amanda spoke in an undertone to Fin. "I'm telling you, he smells different."

"Who, Barba?" Fin squinted. "Hadn't noticed."

"You wouldn't, you don't have the nose. Bonded omegas smell different, it's how alphas know not to mess with them. Respectable alphas, anyway." Even unrespectable ones, for the most part; it took an especially depraved flavor to break that taboo, even among sex offenders. Not that the scent was off-putting, exactly. Just a _noli me tangere_ you felt in your gut. 

"Not 'bonded,'" Fin was saying. "'Partnered.' Maybe they still talk like that in Georgia, but up here—"

Amanda rolled her eyes. "Potato, potahto, I'm just calling it like it is."

"Fine. Bonded to who?"

She looked both ways warily, then tipped her head at the lieutenant's office. Fin's nose crinkled as he swiveled his chair.

"Now you're shitting me. Liv's as AB as they come. Has been as long as I've known her."

"And no one ever makes new discoveries about their orientation?"

"Sure they do," said Fin. "In college."

"So there's an age limit? I'm telling you, the nose doesn't lie." She glanced at Carisi, who'd returned from foraging for sandwiches and was doling them out. "Carisi, back me up on this."

"Lieu and Barba?" He considered, then held up one lanky finger, like a hound going on point. "I thought there was some funny business with that cake. Couldn't tell for sure, but it looked like _tres leches_ , and you know what that's about."

Amanda and Fin exchanged a look. "What's it about?" Amanda asked.

"What, you guys never seen a telenovela? C'mon. Omega heroine gets engaged, there's a party, it's always _tres leches_. Sometimes there's a scene where she takes a bite, yanno, kinda voluptuously?"

Fin folded his arms, still shaking his head. "It takes heat to bond. Barba never takes that kind of leave."

"He did after he was kidnapped," observed Amanda, with the air of slapping down a trump card. She could see the wheels turning before Fin scowled. 

"Damn, Amanda. Why you gotta put that picture in my head?"

"You don't think it's kinda cute?" She knew Fin wasn't phobic, even if he could do without the mental image of Barba in heat (which, to be fair, she didn't need in her head, either). He just didn't like having his convictions overturned. "They're good friends. We know he's a good guy, even if he acts like a little so-and-so."

"That's your soft spot for omegas talking, A-girl. I still say there's some mistake."

Amanda splayed both elbows on her desk. She smiled a predatory smile. "Care to put money on that?"

*

"We should go after the manufacturers," said Rafael, through a mouthful of sirloin. "Facilitation of rape."

The steakhouse was a new place in Midtown. They were avoiding Forlini's for the time being, though Olivia feared avoidance might look shady in and of itself. It might be safer to present themselves at the bar, snipe at one another like work friends who were definitely not sneaking nookie. At least as long as operation nookie remained covert. Which might not be for long.

She tabled that conversation for later, in private. "We? I can't arrest Big Pharma. And there are all kinds of legitimate uses for placebo pills. Research, clinical trials—"

"By a nineteen-year-old fratboy?"

She reached for the bottle of Cab Franc on the table between them. For all that scotch was his preferred poison, Rafael knew his reds. She refilled her glass. "It's a beautiful pipe dream. Whatever you're smoking, I'll have some." 

"Don't let 1PP hear you." 

"Has Roche ever been indicted for making Rohypnol? Or any other benzodiazepines? If this perp didn't use sugar pills, it'd be something else. Baby aspirin."

"Now who's the pragmatist." He looked pleased, as if converting her to realism had been his secret plan all along. He wiped his mouth with the cloth napkin, but the crooked smile held. "Speaking of things medicinal. You may have been right about vitamin G."

"Oh?"

"I went for my annual physical. My blood pressure's dropped ten points. I haven't had a migraine in weeks. My internist asked if I'd made any 'healthy lifestyle changes.' Yoga, kale smoothies." He hefted his wine glass. "Laying off the sauce."

Olivia pictured him, suspenders and striped socks and all, on a yoga mat doing downward-facing dog. "And you said?"

A shit-eating smirk lit up his face. The brightness was infectious. "I said if cowgirl position counts as a yoga pose—"

She shook her head. "Unbelievable."

"I kid. I confessed to seeing someone—" he inclined his head to her "—and getting regular gentling. Turns out there's a veritable host of cardiovascular benefits. Well documented."

Olivia put her elbow on the table, her chin in her hand. "So what you're saying is, I'm good for your heart?"

"You are."

If they'd been side by side at the bar, she could've touched him. Shoulder to shoulder, shin to shin. She'd worn the wrong sort of boots for footsie—poor planning. She wanted to tell him to get a box for his steak. 

Instead she took another sip of wine. "Wish I could manage my blood pressure that way."

"Does it do anything for you at all?

Some betas had a mild response to gentling. Brian had tried it with her, even Ed. She'd put the impulse down to alpha instinct—or cultural conditioning—and indulged them, but when she'd failed to melt dramatically into a puddle of goo, they'd given up. Maybe it would be different with Rafael, but she doubted it. 

"Feels like a regular neck massage," she said. "Not bad. Kind of boring."

"Not like God's in Her heaven, alpha's in the den, and all's right with the world?"

"Honestly? I get more out of doing it for you."

His shit-eating smile had given way to something softer, if no less doofy. He laid down his knife and fork. When the waiter came by, she asked for the check.

They stepped outside the restaurant to wait for their ride, bumping shoulders against the deepening chill. Olivia's phone buzzed in her pocket. She puffed a cloud of breath as she read the text from Fin. Rafael leaned into her, inquiring.

"Fin and Carisi searched the boyfriend's apartment. Guess what they found in the garbage?" 

"Discarded crumbs of human decency?"

"That, and Amena's pills. The real ones. He hadn't taken out the trash."

"You're kidding. All that, and brainless too? At this rate she may not have to testify."

Olivia texted a reply to Fin. "I'll have them bring him in. We'll see if he's dumb enough to confess." 

Their Lyft arrived. In the back of the car she could touch him, finally. She shed her gloves, then divested him of his with striptease slowness, inch by inch, and intertwined their fingers. He supervised the entire undertaking, smiling one of his small, contented smiles. As the car turned toward 54th and her apartment, she gave him a look.

"Your place would've been closer." 

"Your place smells like you." His tone implied the conclusion should be foregone. She realized she hadn't factored nose appeal into her math.

"What's that like? For you."

"In a word? Dreamy." Then, because he never could stop at just one: "An odorific panoply of Liv." She made a face. "What. You didn't notice me hyperventilating the first time you had me over?"

"I thought it was because you were about to get laid."

"That, too."

"You're awfully blasé about it now."

"I'm not making any assumptions. We could be going to your place to do the _Times_ crossword. Play Sudoku."

She hadn't known, until the past weeks, that he could be so manifestly happy. Or that knowing she'd stoked that happiness would light something in her, something sustaining, like fire in the hearth in a house where two could live. She'd felt nothing like it with Ed, with Brian, with anyone who'd come before. The sense of pride, too, was different, the full-to-bursting bubble in her chest that rose sometimes just from standing next to Rafael, the urge to instruct the world at large: look at this man. Look long and hard; you won't find a better. She slipped a finger into his coat sleeve, under the cuff of his shirt. 

"We could. What's a four-letter word for what I'm gonna do with you?" 

If they were grossing out the driver, she couldn't bring herself to care. On the far side of the window, the headlights of other cars on 10th Avenue flashed and ebbed. There were no sirens, no emergencies for her to race toward, not tonight. The play of intermittent light caught on Rafael's eyelashes as they dipped. 

"I can think of a few," he said.

*

The best use of gentling, Olivia had found, was when he was inside her. No matter how close to the edge, a hand on his nape could stay him, imposing just enough reflexive slackness to hold him back. They had yet to discover the limit of repeatability. By this sorcery he could last longer than any alpha she'd ever had.

That wasn't to say there were no complaints.

"You're killing me." His voice rasped at her earlobe. After the last _easy, boy,_ he'd crumpled onto her, burying his face. His hips kept moving in hopeless, feeble circles. 

Olivia slid her hand from his neck into his hair, carding through it, scritching lovingly at his scalp. She spoke in a whisper. "I think you'll live." She clenched around him, savoring, and he groaned again. "You feel too good. I don't want you to stop."

When she did let him come, he shook with it, and lay quaking in her arms for a long time. 

She held him. Sometimes his sleep was as restive as his waking hours; he would shift and mumble, jawing, as if his dreaming mind sought to cross-examine itself. Tonight he lay like a stone sunk in deep water. If his dreams were anything but soft, he gave no sign.

"We need to come clean, Rafael," she murmured, much later, to the top of his head.

He mumbled drowsily, face tucked against her shoulder. Prevailing wisdom had it that the types were most themselves in bed, and while she tried not to put much stock in that, in some respects he'd proved to be a case study. Blankets were non-negotiable, for one thing. He would cuddle at the slightest provocation, for another. Olivia supposed one could hardly expect cold tolerance from an omega with Cuban blood. She tugged the sheet over his exposed arm.

"Rollins practically cornered me in my office and asked about my intentions toward you."

He unburrowed his face, if provisionally. "She is a trained detective. And an alpha born and raised in the South."

"She told me you 'smell bonded.' Her words." Olivia turned on her side to study him. He didn't seem taken aback. "When were you gonna tell me?"

"When I was sure of it myself?" He shifted onto his stomach to brood over the pillows. "I wasn't trying to be cagey. I can't detect subtle changes in my scent, not the way an alpha would. I don't feel much different. Happier, calmer. Other than that—" 

She should've been more daunted, maybe. Bonds could be broken, but as objects in motion tended to stay in motion, an omega's bond tended to hold unless subjected to brutal duress. He'd be as steadfast in this orbit as he ever was, if not more. Even without the bond, she knew what it took to lose his loyalty once given. It'd be all on her to cock this one up.

Of course she'd wondered how a bond could be possible, when she'd spent at most an hour with him during his heat, and at the time they'd barely touched, let alone had sex. When she'd asked, Dr. Lindstrom had allowed the oddity, but it could happen in a close relationship if the omega had a "low threshold," he said. 

Since that sounded vaguely insulting to Rafael, she elected not to repeat it. "Had you ever...?" 

He was quiet for a time. "Before I left the Bronx, when I was young...you have to understand, with Alex and Eddie, we had our own little pack. Alex helped me through heat once, but he was and is all about the ladies." _To his detriment_ went without saying. "And then Yelina...looking back on it, I must've been in love with them both. My first year of undergrad I felt...severed. I blamed homesickness at the time." Old grief hung on his face as he looked at her. "So that was something. Nothing since then."

Olivia stroked his hair back from his forehead. "What were you planning to do if I said 'Babe, it's been real, but I need a man with more testosterone, and I think we're better as friends?'"

"What would anyone do? Drink copiously. Drench my pillow with tears." He paused. "Are you saying it?"

She shook her head. "My intention toward you, such as it is, is to stick around as long as you want me."

He rolled onto his back to stare at the ceiling. His eyes grew suspiciously bright. She really needed to dial it down if she wanted to quit making her omega cry. 

"That could be a long time."

"85 to life?" She felt like she was good for it—like she could see it, this time, when she'd never been able to believe in that kind of mutual future before. She wanted to tell him so, in no uncertain terms. It was past performance that held her tongue. "I'm scared to jinx us. My history's been...less than heartening."

"Well." His mouth crooked in a sappier version of the smirk she remembered from their early days, back when she'd fancied he overcompensated for omegahood by being an ass. "It wasn't with me."

"You're not thinking 'Babe, it's been great, but I need an alpha, not a cheap knockoff?'"

 _"Mi líder de la manada."_ He scooted against her side and nuzzled her jawline, under her chin. "You're the alpha of my heart." 

She would've snorted, but the earnest streak in his teasing touched her. She kissed him, lingering, then slipped out of bed. She pulled on her discarded night clothes—tank top and sweats—and made for the kitchen. When she came back with two glasses of water, she found Rafael sitting upright, arrayed in his blanket like a Roman senator in a toga. A senator with adorably tousled hair. 

He accepted the water as she climbed back into bed. "Rollins won't give us up, will she?"

"No, but if she can smell the roses, sooner or later someone else will."

"I'm ready when you are. There's an opening at the DA's office in Conviction Integrity. Calling out my compadres when they screw the judisprudential pooch."

Her hands stilled on the glass. She set it carefully on the nightstand. 

"You're sure it'll come to that?" Maybe she'd been naive to imagine otherwise. Naive, or in willful denial. The prospect of their working partnership dissolving opened a hollow in her chest. "It's not enough that we disclose?"

"There's a need to avoid even the appearance of impropriety. A prosecutor has a duty not only to be disinterested but to _seem_ disinterested. How many members of the jury, the public, will believe a bonded omega has no personal interest in pleasing his partner? Who happens to be the head of SVU?" He leaned against the headboard, gaze fixed on some remote lodestar of dispassionate justice. "They wouldn't be wrong. I'm not impartial where you're concerned. It didn't start with Georgia O'Keeffe."

"So what if you're not? We're on the same side. You try to please me, I try to please you. When you tell me we need more evidence, I go fetch." She drew up her legs and folded them under her, hunching. Trying to contain a growl. "It's stupid to break up the dream team. None of us wants to break in a new ADA."

"When you finally got this one trained?" His smile went lopsided before it faded. "I'll miss the job. I'll miss working with you. All of you. Mainly you." He gazed at her steadily. "We have to be prepared, Liv. I'm prepared." 

A cold, compressed lump formed under her ribs. Below it curdled guilt, acidic and sour: wasn't this, too, an abduction of sorts? To wrest him away from the work. To rob the victims of their dedicated champion. She couldn't fight for them in court the way he could. She railed against the breach as she committed it.

"You love what you do," she whispered. "You're the best. You shouldn't have to choose."

He moved to sit in front of her directly, cross-legged, knee to knee. "Maybe I shouldn't." He took her hands in his. "If I do, I choose this. It's no contest."

The pit of her breast ached. If she were really his alpha, if only in spirit—the truest kind, the kind that lived to lead rightly and protect—she wouldn't let him shoulder this alone. She forced the words past her closing throat. 

"I was ready to quit when Dodds wouldn't let me look for you. I could still do it."

"If I'm reassigned you won't have to," said Rafael at once. He lowered his head to gaze up at her, at an angle that came from the heart. "Liv. I'm not asking you to give up SVU. I wouldn't."

It was her turn to get something in her eyes. Something hot and blinding. She squeezed them shut, then wrapped her arms around him and clung on, mashing her lips to the crown of his head.


	5. Chapter 5

They sat in Olivia's car outside Lucía Barba's building. Rafael was pulling faces in the passenger seat.

"You don't have to do this," he said. Olivia shut off the engine.

"We've talked to my bosses," she said reasonably. "We've talked to yours."

"And this is the final boss?"

"I just want to do the right thing."

"I have the utmost respect for that— _and,_ in this case you are conflating 'right' with 'old-fashioned.' Not to say 'archaic'—"

"Rafa."

He pulled one last face, then unbuckled his seat belt and heaved himself from the car, bottle of Rioja in hand.

Lucía greeted them at the door to her apartment. The last time Olivia had seen her, it had been under circumstances they'd all rather forget. Since then she'd colored her hair a slightly more emphatic shade of red. Rafael kissed her cheek. 

"How are you, Mami."

"Oh, you know. Work's been crazy. Olivia, so good to see you, come in. What pretty flowers, thank you," she said, as Olivia proffered the bouquet: daffodils, for esteem and hope. Traditional for the occasion, at least according to the internet. Olivia wished she'd done more diligent research.

"Thank you for having me. Mrs. Barba—" She broke off. She'd meant to cut to the chase, if only so her resolve didn't crumble.

"Lucía, please."

"Lucía. I'm not just here to take advantage of your hospitality, I'm." Like a deer in headlights she turned to Rafael, who offered neither sympathy nor rescue. The traitor. Olivia drew a breath. "I'm here to ask for your blessing." Not permission; even if his mother were the arbiter (and they both agreed she wasn't), it was a little late for that. Olivia looked into Lucía's widening eyes. 

"I'm courting your son," she said.

*

The daffodils went into a vase on the living room table. Lucia fussed at their arrangement with evident glee. 

"Nobody follows the traditions anymore. I didn't think this day would ever come. But Rafi's a good boy. He works too hard, needs someone to look after him, but lady alphas, you know, they're not exactly a dime a dozen! It would've been easier if he liked boys, but it was always girls with him. Tall ones." Lucía winked. 

Olivia hurried to wedge a word in edgewise, before she could be further misconstrued. "Actually, I'm not an alpha." Trying not to feel sheepish, she glanced up at Rafael, who was swanning back from the kitchen, corkscrew and wine glasses in hand. 

"Close enough for government work," he said under his breath.

Lucía had pressed a hand to her cheek. "Olivia, I beg your pardon! My nose has never been good."

"I'm sure your nose is fine. For my job I have to assume a role of authority, and the police force is an alpha-dominated field. Though my unit is something of an exception."

"You really ought to have an omega officer at SVU," said Rafael. "I've always thought so."

Olivia flopped her hands. "Believe me, I wish. So does Dodds. Are you volunteering?"

"Very funny. My talents lie elsewhere." He seemed to become aware that his mother was observing, and hurried to uncork the bottle. He poured for Olivia first, then Lucía, and lastly himself.

"You two have worked together a long time," Lucía said. "I remember Rafi grousing when he first transferred to Manhattan. Another day, another Detective Benson goose chase. So what changed?" When the silence lengthened, she set down her glass. Her face paled. "Was it...was it what happened with..."

Before Olivia could marshal an answer, Rafael kicked back and lifted his chin. "It was my damsel in distress act, Mami. Who could resist?"

Lucía clamped her lips together. She reached across the coffee table. She took Olivia's hand, then Rafael's, and clutched them both as if in prayer. "Then thank God something good came out of that nightmare." Her eyes glistened. "Bless you, Olivia. You don't need my blessing, but you have it. You have them all."

They stayed for maybe an hour altogether. Lucía set out a bowl of snack mix, which mother and son proceeded to demolish between them. She nearly spewed Rioja when Olivia regaled her with the tale of the cake. 

"And you had no idea. Oh, my God."

"What's the origin story there, do you know?" Olivia asked. "I mean, why _tres leches?"_

The slant of Lucía's smile was uncannily familiar. "It's soaked in 'milks,' Olivia dear. The alpha serves it up. Think about it."

The bulb went on. "Oh," said Olivia. "Right. I see." She looked pointedly at Rafael, who fled to the kitchen on some flimsy pretext while his mother wheezed.

They begged off dinner with the promise of coming next Sunday (if Olivia wasn't swamped with a case). Lucía agreed, saying it would give her time to prepare, and to bring Rafael's grandmother from the care center. When Olivia suggested she and Rafael pick up Catalina on their way, his gaze rested on her warmly over the rim of his glass. He seconded the motion. 

Back in the car, Olivia flopped into the driver's seat. She let out her breath in a whoosh.

"You let yourself in for it," said Rafael.

"I did. I'm not sorry." She turned to study him. "She never knew? About you and Alex."

His brow clouded, as if to say _really, we're doing this now?_ But the cloud passed as soon as it gathered. "Not the whole story." He fiddled with his seat belt, then laid his hands in his lap. "There were others. A few."

"Alphas?" He nodded. "You never told her?"

He gave a tight little shrug. "None of them were Sunday dinner material."

"How come?" When he was slow to answer, she said, "Because they weren't, or because you thought they couldn't be?"

The look on his face broadcast his feeling about this line of inquiry. "Both? Have you talked to any alpha males lately?" He continued to glare. "Baffles me that you can stand them."

He was thinking of Ed, of Brian; she could tell by the pinch of his mouth. It was a good thing he'd never met Elliot. "They have their moments," Olivia said equably, and he snorted. 

"Moments, sure. Once a month if you're not on pills."

She had to smile. "You're right, though. Seems like sooner or later there's always...a failure of the minds to meet. Though I'm not sure if that's an alpha-beta thing, or a man-woman thing, or just...the people involved."

"A people thing." 

"Yeah." Olivia reached for his hand. "I love you. I'm really not trying to dictate what you should or shouldn't tell your mom."

Rafael curled his fingers between hers. He turned again toward the window. "If I go back and come out to her now, she'll be very confused."

"So wear your pride socks to Sunday dinner. She's a smart lady. She'll figure it out."

"Who says I have pride socks?" 

"I thought all your socks were pride socks." She squeezed, then let go of his hand. "The navy ones with rainbow dots are nice."

"Aren't they? Someone might put those bad boys on for you if you drive us to my place." Arching an eyebrow, he lifted his nearer pant leg to flash racy purple stripes. "Just the socks, nothing else?"

Olivia threw back her head and grinned. "Promises, promises," she said, and started the car.

*

"Y'know," said Rollins, leaning on Olivia's office door, "you smell different, too."

Sitting at her desk, Olivia blinked over the top of her reading glasses. "I didn't change shampoo brands. How do you mean?"

"I mean, if we didn't know each other, and I ran into you on the street? Sniff test only? It'd be a tossup as to whether you were A or B."

Being mistyped by a beta like Lucía Barba was one thing, but Rollins's nose was a finely calibrated instrument. The gears of Olivia's mind ground to a halt. 

"You're serious." 

"Kinda makes sense, if you think about it. You're leading the squad. You're shtupping an omega princess." While Olivia was busy choking on this sketch of Rafael, Rollins shrugged. "If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck...."

Recovering, Olivia held up a restraining hand. "Yeah, last I checked? Still not a duck. I'm not saying people don't transition, of course they do, but that's—a deliberate process. One that involves identifying as what you're transitioning to."

"I know, I just thought you might want to be aware. Cragen used to say there's a little A and a little O in every B. These days? You've got more than a little A." 

With that parting shot, she turned to leave. As if on cue Rafael came waltzing in, wind-chafed but still coiffed, handsome in his camel coat and leather gloves. The word _princess_ rang in Olivia's head like a bell that could never be untolled. Rollins flashed a winning smile. 

"Hey, Counselor. Lunch date?"

"I suppose I can't pretend to be here on business," he said.

He was making a go of it with the Conviction Integrity Unit, though it remained to be seen whether the gig would stick; already he'd begun muttering about other options. Olivia wasn't sorry they'd kept their noses clean, since it put him in a better position, whether he chose to leave the DA's office or stay. Even if she missed watching him go to battle—for her, for the victims they'd both fought for—in his chosen arena. Even if her steps tried to turn for his office every time she set foot in 1 Hogan Place.

The squad had thrown him not a goodbye party but (as Carisi dubbed it) a see-you-around, p.s. congrats-on-landing-our-lieutenant soiree. The cake this time was free from innuendo. Olivia had seen to that.

"How are you getting on with ADA Ferrera?" Rafael asked, including Rollins in his glance.

"She's a spitfire," said Rollins. "She cares about the vics, I'll give her that."

"We're all adjusting," Olivia said. Privately she was reserving judgment, but Ferrera reminded her at times of Alex Cabot, which was no bad thing.

"I think she'll do well. If you want an inside man, tell Carisi to apply. I may be able to dupe someone into letting him practice law. No promises."

"And lose my partner? When we're short staffed as it is? No thank you," Rollins said. "You kids have fun at lunch. Ta." 

She dimpled and sauntered back to her desk. Rafael looked askance over his shoulder, then turned to Olivia.

"What's with her?"

"She thinks I'm a clownfish." Shutting her laptop, Olivia stood and reached for her coat. "She's been watching too much National Geographic. I'll tell you later. Let's get out of here."

As they left the squad room, she let her hand come to rest on the small of his back. The freedom to do it—without giving a damn who might see—satisfied her all out of proportion. She hadn't realized how often she did it unthinkingly, how readily he'd always accepted the touch, until being obliged to refrain from it. Turned out keeping her paws off him wasn't her forte at all. 

In the elevator she said, "Guess who I heard from?" He cocked his head. "Amena Hill. She's joined the omega advocacy group on campus. They're arranging a series of speakers for the spring semester."

"She asked you to give a talk?"

"She did. She also asked whether that cute O-boy ADA might be interested in speaking. They like to bring omega speakers whenever possible."

The elevator doors opened. Rafael was giving her an _I've got your number_ look. "Have I already been booked?"

"I said I would ask about your availability."

"Campus outreach isn't really my purview."

"Not yet." Olivia slid her hand to the underside of his sleeve. "Could be a joint presentation. Make it a date."

"Well. When you put it like _that."_

They pushed through the main doors of the 16th Precinct onto the street, into the bracing winter wind. Rafael made a disgruntled sound and tucked himself against her, using her body as a windbreak without scruple or shame. Delight chased through Olivia, and with it an upswell of too-proprietary pride. She draped her arm around his shoulders, then brushed her hand above his collar, just for a second, to fortify them both with warmth.

**Author's Note:**

> At present this is a no-Noah AU. As usual I've cherry-picked omegaverse tropes to suit myself (no knotting, no mpreg, sorry kids!). For any readers new to A/B/O, the [Fanlore page](https://fanlore.org/wiki/Alpha/Beta/Omega) may be a useful intro. 
> 
> Both the NYBG and the O'Keeffe exhibit are real, but I've taken some liberties with geography.
> 
> Thank you to all you lovely readers! You can find me at unicornmagic.tumblr.com :3


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